Since then the Soule works by her selfe alone,

Springs not from Sense, nor humors, well agreeing;
Her nature is peculiar, and her owne:

She is a substance, and a perfect being.

THAT THE SOULE IS A SPIRIT.

UT though this substance be the root of Sense,

BUT

Sense knowes her not, which doth but bodies know; Shee is a spirit, and heauenly influence,

Which from the fountaine of God's Spirit doth flow.

Shee is a Spirit, yet not like ayre, or winde,

Nor like the spirits about the heart or braine;
Nor like those spirits which alchymists do find,
When they in euery thing seeke gold in vaine.

For shee all natures vnder heauen doth passe;

Being like those spirits, which God's bright face do see; Or like Himselfe, Whose image once she was,

Though now (alas !) she scarce His shadow bee.

Yet of the formes, she holds the first degree,
That are to grosse materiall bodies knit ;
Yet shee her selfe is bodilesse and free ;
And though confin'd, is almost infinite.

THAT IT CANNOT BE A BODY.

Were she a body how could she remaine

Within this body, which is lesse then she?
Or how could she the world's great shape contain,
And in our narrow brests contained bee?

All bodies are confin'd within some place,

But she all place within her selfe confines;
All bodies haue their measure, and their space,
But who can draw the Soule's dimensiue lines?

No body can at once two formes admit,

Except the one the other doe deface;

But in the soule ten thousand formes do sit,
And none intrudes into her neighbour's place.

All bodies are with other bodies fild,

But she receiues both heauen and earth together;
Nor are their formes by rash incounter spild,
For there they stand, and neither toucheth either.

Nor can her wide imbracements filled bee;

For they that most, and greatest things embrace,
Inlarge thereby their minds' capacitie,

As streames inlarg'd, inlarge the channel's space."6

6 Time but the impression stronger makes
As streams their channels deeper wear.'
BURNS: to Mary in Heaven.

mind,

All things receiv'd, doe such proportion take,

As those things haue, wherein they are receiu'd:
So little glasses little faces make,

And narrow webs on narrow frames be weau'd ;

Then what vast body must we make the mind

Wherin are men, beasts, trees, towns, seas, and lands;
And yet each thing a proper place doth find,
And each thing in the true proportion stands ?

Doubtlesse this could not bee, but that she turnes
Bodies to spirits, by sublimation strange;
As fire conuerts to fire the things it burnes
As we our meats into our nature change.

From their grosse matter she abstracts the formes,
And drawes a kind of quintessence from things;
Which to her proper nature she transformes,
To bear them light on her celestiall wings :

This doth she, when, from things particular,
She doth abstract the universall kinds;
Which bodilesse and immateriall are,
And can be lodg'd but onely in our minds:

And thus from diuers accidents and acts,

Which doe within her obseruation fall,

She goddesses, and powers diuine, abstracts :
As Nature, Fortune, and the Vertues all.

Againe, how can she seuerall bodies know,
If in her selfe a bodie's forme she beare ?
How can a mirror sundry faces show,

If from all shapes and formes it be not cleare?

Nor could we by our eyes all colours learne,
Except our eyes were of all colours voide;
Nor sundry tastes can any tongue discerne,
Which is with grosse and bitter humors cloide.

Nor may a man of passions iudge aright,

Except his minde bee from all passions free;
Nor can a Judge his office well acquite,

If he possest of either partie bee.

If lastly, this quicke power a body were,

Were it as swift as is the winde or fire;

(Whose atomies doe th' one down side-waies beare, And make the other in pyramids aspire :)

Her nimble body yet in time must moue,
And not in instants through all places slide;

7 Southey misprints 'in.' G.

But she is nigh, and farre, beneath, aboue,

In point of time, which thought cannot deuide:

She is sent as soone to China as to Spaine,

And thence returnes, as soone as shee is sent; She measures with one time, and with one paine, An ell of silke, and heauen's wide spreading tent.

As then the Soule a substance hath alone,
Besides the Body in which she is confin'd;
So hath she not a body of her owne,

But is a spirit, and immateriall minde.

THAT THE SOULE IS CREATED IMMEDIATELY BY GOD.

Since body and soule haue such diuersities,

Well might we muse, how first their match began;

But that we learne, that He that spread the skies,

And fixt the Earth, first form'd the soule in man.

This true Prometheus first made Man of earth,
And shed in him a beame of heauenly fire;
Now in their mother's wombs before their birth,
Doth in all sonnes of men their soules inspire.

And as Minerua is in fables said,

From Ioue, without a mother to proceed;